


the in-between

by octaiviablake



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 16:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2277327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octaiviablake/pseuds/octaiviablake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy and Finn meet up with the Ark survivors, and Lincoln faces off with the guards. Abby is faced with the reality of her new surroundings. Bellarke and linctavia undertones throughout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the in-between

The clearing they've stopped in is large enough for all of the search party to escape the shade of the trees, and though alert, they take a few moments to soak up the sun's warmth.

Abby tries to gather her bearings. She and almost thirty others have come straight north from the wreckage of Mecha station towards the place Kane thought Tesla station might have landed. To get to them, they still have to summit the mountain they've been hiking up and then circle around to a valley to the east. The rest is welcome after the exhausting morning, and she's about to sink down onto a stone pile at the center of the clearing when shouts sound from several of the guards.

"Grounder!" they yell in warning, raising their guns to point at a dark form emerging from the forest.

There's a collective gasp as the grounder comes into sight. He's mounted on an enormous horse, and armed with a bow and quiver of arrows - both slung over his back.

"Hold your fire," Abby calls. The man is terrifying and undoubtedly dangerous, but he has not tried to attack them. From what Clarke described of the grounders, it was obvious that the man wouldn't be in the clearing unless he had to be. If he hadn't wanted to be seen, he wouldn't have been.

As the horse walks further into the glade, she gets a better look at the grounder. His head is almost completely shaved, and his skin is dark and inked with patterns. He's carrying a large bundle of furs and glaring down at the guards.

The crowd parts for him as he nudges the horse forward, and he moves straight past the armed guards towards where Abby stands. Suddenly sure he's looking for her, she scrambles to the side, away from the stone mound.

He bypasses her completely, pulling the horse to a stop at the base of the stones. All eyes are on him, but no one speaks. He swings a leg over the horse and dismounts, still holding the furs. The guards move closer, keeping their rifles trained on him even after Abby's order.

With the utmost care, the grounder lays down his bundle on the stones. Abby's stomach turns, and she studies the rock formation closely. There are faded designs carved into the granite, spirals and lines like the tattoos that stretch across the grounder's skin.

_Damnit_ , she thinks. _It's an altar._ They've managed to encroach on one of grounders' sacred sites, she guesses, and she hopes that it is not an act that will call for retribution.

"Abby," a guard calls, "get back." The grounder's head whips around, his gaze boring into her. This time there is no question that he is looking for her; he must have recognized her name. She doesn't have time to wonder how that's possible before a guard starts forward, ordering the grounder away from the altar and his bundle. 

His eyes shine with fury, and in the blink of an eye his knives are drawn and held threateningly before him. Another guard tries to move around him to get to the furs, and a feral sound like a growl rumbles through his chest.

"Leave it," Abby says, positive that the grounder will fight to the death to protect whatever it is that he'd carried here, and not confident about their odds against him. Both parties remain tense, looking as if they might attack at any moment; a cold panic rises in her throat.

"Stand down!" a voice calls out suddenly from the woods.

Abby's head whips around as she looks for the source of the command, and her eyes widen as she catches sight of two boys emerging from the trees.

The gunners lower their weapons slightly at the sound of an authoritative voice, but almost immediately one of them yells, "Hey, that's the guy who shot the chancellor!" and some of the guns swivel to point at the boy who'd spoken.

Abby watches in shock as Bellamy Blake rolls his eyes and strides straight into the crowd.

"I was pardoned, asshole," he says as he and the other boy pass the guard who'd recognized him. "I said stand down!" He turns to look pointedly at the grounder. "All of you." 

Shaking away lingering surprise and confusion, Abby walks forward. "You know each other?" she asks, and Bellamy visibly tenses up as he recognizes her voice.

"Abby Griffin," he greets, turning to look at her.

"Bellamy Blake," she greets back.

At the base of the altar, ****the grounder sheaths his knives.

"Can we trust him?" Abby asks Bellamy, and he nods.

"How is she?" he asks, moving towards the larger man.

The grounder frowns. "Worse," he says quietly, and Abby is surprised to hear his low voice.

"What are you talking about?" she asks, coming closer to the fur bundle the grounder had been carrying. Her breath catches in her throat.

There's a girl wrapped in the pelts, feverish and unconscious.

The grounder's protectiveness becomes clear, and Abby is filled with grudging respect for him. He'd walked into the lion's den for her, and Abby cannot deny that things could have gone much worse.

"Fuck," Bellamy mutters, sinking to his knees beside the girl. "O?"

The girl is unresponsive. He feels her forehead, swallowing hard, and turns to the grounder. "Lincoln, what's wrong with her?"

"The arrowhead was poisoned," Lincoln replies gruffly, and Abby steps in, pushing away her questions.

"I'm a doctor, I can help," she tells him, but Lincoln fixes her with a glare that makes her take a step back.

"I think you've done enough," he all but growls. He knows she was part of the council, she realizes. That she might have voted to put the Blake girl in prison, and to float her mother. Bellamy sighs heavily.

"Let her look, Lincoln. If she can help Octavia…" he lets the words hang there for a moment, and after a minute of silently glaring at her, Lincoln moves aside.

"Be quick," he murmurs, and crosses his arms over his chest threateningly. 

Abby inspects the girl's leg as swiftly as she can. When she's finished, she leans back on her heels and tries not to show her hopelessness.

"We don't have any medical supplies down here," she starts, and Bellamy curses, seeing right through her.

"Lincoln, is it the same poison that was on your knife?" he asks, and Abby looks up, confused. Lincoln nods gravely. "Then why can't you heal her?" Bellamy asks, frustrated.

"Clarkeused all of the antidote for Finn and Octavia," Lincoln responds.

"Hang on," Abby interjects, looking between them with a mixture of curiosity and fear. "Why did Clarke need to… _Your_ knife?" The rest of her sentence dies in her throat.

"It's a long story," the other boy says - Finn Collins, Abby remembers finally, recalling his file. He claps the grounder on the back. "Basically, Lincoln stabbed me the first time we met." Abby's eyes widen, and she turns to look warily at the imposing man. Finn chuckles. "It's cool though, we're good now." She lifts an incredulous eyebrow.

"How do we get more of the antidote?" Bellamy asks Lincoln, impatient to help his sister.

"We can't," Lincoln says. His brow darkens.

"What do you mean!?" Bellamy asks, looking as if he's about to hit something.

"The antidote is rare," Lincoln explains. "It takes months to distill the essence of the _tivul_ ****flower."

Abby jumps into the conversation. "Maybe you can use the plant in another way," she offers, and Lincoln shoots her another dark look.

"Why do you think I came here?" he asks gruffly, and she finally notices the blue flowers growing in the cracks of the stone altar. 

_Ah. Not a spiritual visit, then._

Lincoln turns back to Bellamy. "It might not work," he says,pain evident in his voice.

"We have to try," Bellamy replies, and Abby watches their gazes meet. They are suffering together, that much is clear. She swallows hard. She is so far out of her depth, and the feeling is unfamiliar. She doesn't know how to help this girl, this child, and that terrifies her.

Lincoln moves to gather some of the flowers. He puts them in his mouth, and Abby stares unabashedly, mystified by his method of healing. He chews them carefully, then packs the poultice into Octavia's wound. Bellamy tears a strip of cloth from the bottom of his shirt and ties it around her leg to bandage it. 

"Bellamy," Lincoln says softly, "we need Clarke." The other man stiffens at the mention of Abby's daughter.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "Yeah, I know."

"Where is she?" Abby asks, desperate to see her again, and Bellamy ducks his head. The other boys say nothing, seeming to understand that it is Bellamy's place to tell her.

"She was taken," Bellamy says finally, and Abby's heart clenches painfully. "They all were."

"By who?" she manages to ask, and Bellamy looks to Lincoln for help.

"My people call them the Mountain Men," the grounder says, and Bellamy heaves a great sigh.

"They're holed up in Mount Weather," he explains. "We found gas canisters at the dropship, so they must have pretty advanced weapons and tech. From what we've heard, they sound like scientists." Abby stamps down on the panic rising up again.

"Scientists... That could be good, they might just want to help, and-"

"We've heard that they like to _experiment_."

A heavy silence fills the air, and Abby takes a shaky breath.

"Oh."

After a moment, Bellamy turns back to Lincoln. "Thank you for looking after my sister," he says, his voice thick with emotion. "I trust that you'll keep her safe."

It sounds too much like a goodbye for Abby's liking, and she frowns. "Are you going somewhere?" she asks.

"Yes," he replies, with renewed conviction. "I am. I'm going to Mount Weather.I'm getting them out or I'm gonna die trying."

"Hey, hold on," Finn protests, holding out a hand warily. "Just hang on a minute."

"Do you think I'm going to just let them rot in there?" Bellamy asks furiously. His voice becomes dangerously quiet. "That I'm just going to leave _her_ to die?"

Finn falters, his protests fading.

"No. No, I don't," he says finally.

Abby interjects, incredulous.

"You have no backup, no real plan - it would be a suicide mission, one with no hope of success."

Bellamy scoffs. "You've missed a lot down here. We've learned how to survive, how to protect each other."

"Really?!" Abby says, hysteria bubbling in her chest."Then how come my daughter's a prisoner again? You didn't protect _her_ very well, did you?" It's a low blow and she knows it, can tell how sensitive the topic is, but she can't help herself. Bellamy turns to her with a wild look in his eye.

"Don't you dare," he growls. "Don't you _ever_ dare tell me that I didn't do everything I could to keep her safe, because I did! I _did!_ " Abby can't tell if he's trying to convince her or himself. She stumbles back, covering her face with her hands.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't mean that." Bellamy blows out a long breath, squeezing his eyes shut. He takes a step back too.

"I'm going to get her back," he says, and it sounds like a promise. "I'm going to get them all back." He kneels down by Octavia's side and presses a kiss to her forehead. "You'd better be alright when I get back," he whispers. Abby looks away, feeling intrusive. "I love you, O," he breathes. He ducks his head for a moment, gathering himself, then stands. 

"Spacewalker, you coming?" he asks, and Finn grins.

"Hell yeah." Bellamy nods, something like a smile playing at the corners of his lips.

Abby turns back to the group to get them each a gun and some rations, and they thank her quietly as they stash the food packets in their jackets and sling the rifles over their shoulders. They look far too familiar with the weapons for their age, even Bellamy, a former cadet. It unsettles Abby.

"Find my daughter, Blake," she says. He holds her gaze as he nods sincerely, and she feels a wave of comfort wash over her. If anyone can get Clarke back, it's this man. Clearly he will stop at nothing to find her, and like Abby herself, he will do whatever it takes to bring her home.

"See you on the other side," he says. He sends a final, lingering glance to Octavia's prone form, then tears his gaze away.

Bellamy and Finn leave as quickly as they had come, their forms disappearing into the forest silently.

Abby turns away.

"Let me help," she says softly, coming closer to Lincoln and his charge. Though wary, he allows her to kneel by Octavia again. "We can try to reduce the fever by cooling her down," she offers.

He looks at her for a moment, sizing her up.

"There's a stream not far from here," he says finally, and she beams.

She's out of her element and more than a little frightened by this massive, dangerous man, but she's going to help this girl. She's going to help Octavia Blake, because she couldn't stop her mother from being floated or her from being locked up at fourteen.

And when Clarke gets back - because she will, because Bellamy will bring her home - she's going to tell her how proud she is of her for becoming the leader that the hundred needed her to be. She'll tell her how happy she is that she's got someone like Bellamy Blake looking out for her. She'll tell her how much she loves her, and then she'll show her just how much every day.

 

Two months later, when Bellamy and Clarke break through the treeline hand in hand, with sixty other kids following them, she gets her chance.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is welcome and appreciated!! You can find more of my writing on my tumblr, octaiviablake, where I take prompts. Thanks for reading! xx


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